24-hour test drive: PC-BSD

PC-BSD is not a Linux distribution, but rather what could be considered among the first major FreeBSD-based distributions to live outside of the official FreeBSD. Like most distributions, it has implemented certain features in a way that attempts to distinguish it from the competition, and I will focus mostly on these differences. This test drive is intended to give an overview of what PC-BSD is and why one would consider using it.

First and foremost, PC-BSD is an attempt to make a user-friendly Unix. Many Linux distributions have a similar focus and attempt to achieve it in different ways, and PC-BSD should be considered alongside these distributions. Additionally, PC-BSD's developers went to great efforts to make users who are transitioning from Windows more comfortable—more on that later.

The version I tested was PC-BSD 1.3, which is based on FreeBSD 6.1, X.org 6.9, and KDE 3.5.5—none of which are the latest release.